Food tips

Kaz Tsutsumi showing off ramen noodles Part of the annual San Francisco celebration of all things Japanese, the  J-Pop Summit is the Ramen Summit . There are five different ramen shops offering a different style of ramen. This year I tried each of the bowls. And so can you! Tickets are still available for Sunday September 10, 2017 for the J-Pop Summit and the Ramen Summit is located outside the entrance. Each bowl is $8, and definitely large enough to share. Here's my take on each bowl featured this year. Marufuku Ramen This Hakata style ramen is one of my current favorites. I really love the creamy texture of their tonkotsu and their ultra thin noodles which still manage to remain al dente. It’s made under the guidance of Kaz Tsutsumi, who has been a ramen chef for 11 years. Marufuku has a shop in Japantown in the old Sapporo-Ya space. I wrote about it for Tasting Table, it was one of my picks for  cheap eats . Their noodles are custom made by  Yamachan .  Yoroshi...

The number eight is considered lucky in Chinese culture, and the more eights the luckier. This year represents the 8th anniversary of LUCKYRICE , an Asian food festival and it’s being held on September 8, 2017, general admission tickets are $88. That's a whole lot of luck! While this may be the 8th year, it’s also in one way the first. It’s the first year of a plant based edition feast. This is noteworthy because if you go to chef gala events you see a lot of the same kinds of dishes and they aren’t plant based. Tuna tartare is popular, a seared scallop, perhaps something with pork belly or foie gras will make an appearance. But as dining evolves so too do these events. In San Francisco some of the finest restaurants are focusing more on vegetables than ever before. I spoke with LUCKYRICE founder, Danielle Chang to learn more about the event and the second season of her PBS show, Lucky Chow . How many galas and "feasts" have you produced? In the eight lucky years that I’...

There are certain dishes that no matter how many times I make them, I’m always looking for a better recipe. Macaroni and cheese is one of them. You know a good macaroni and cheese when you taste it. For me, it’s rich but not oily, gooey with melted cheese and with no graininess to the sauce. It’s also got a little sharp edge to it. I usually start with a bechamel, but I’ve never been convinced that it’s the perfect sauce base.  I eat a lot of cauliflower and I’m by no means the first to discover that pureed it can stand in for all kinds of creamy sauces. For this recipe I was inspired by two recipes, one from Mark Bittman and another from Michelle Obama. Yup. Michelle Obama. It’s a recipe that is floating around the internet but I really couldn’t find very many comments from readers who had tried it, so I just went for it. The whole grain pasta and cauliflower addition make this a healthier recipe than some, but I still wouldn't call it healthy.  My version of this recipe di...

When I was growing up one of my favorite dishes was veal parmigiana. I adored the tender scallops of veal, breaded and fried then coated with tomato sauce and topped with gooey mozzarella. It wasn’t an everyday meal by any means, but I do remember requesting it for my birthday. These days when you hear the word veal it unfortunately brings to mind “veal crates.” Veal has become the poster child for the inhumane treatment of animals. But the truth is, individual confining veal pens are outlawed in many states and are being phased out altogether. By the end of this year, veal crates will become a thing of the past. But that’s just the beginning of the misperceptions about veal. According to the American Veal Association , 100% of US veal farms are family owned, most are also family run and very small scale. No growth hormones are used and the animal's tails are not docked, their horns are not removed. Recently I met with Julie Rossotti of Rossotti Ranch . Julie comes from a Swiss dai...

Is a spiralizer necessary? I got one to review, but truth be told I’m unconvinced. It turns out there are lots of ways to get strands and ribbons from vegetables and fruit. The most common kitchen tools, a grater and a vegetable peeler work remarkably well. I'm also a fan of the  mandolin  which can be used to make many more types of cuts.  But if you really enjoy creating these textures and want a single gadget, the Deiss Pro Julienne & Vegetable Peeler is really a three in one. It’s great for peeling potatoes and carrots, but it’s also good for creating those slithery ribbons and shredds for salads. It also has a nifty feature on the side that allows you to remove the "eyes" from potatoes without resorting to a paring knife or use it to create a peel strip from citrus fruit.  I’ve been using this gadget on zucchini. I use the larger ribbons with chunkier pasta and the shreds with skinny noodles. I blanch the zucchini for a minute or two with the pasta, to get...

When I think of the wines of the Alsace I think white wine. After all 90% of the wines produced in the Alsace are white. But there’s growing interest in one particular red wine, Pinot Noir. This is a recent development, in part due to changing climate conditions. The Alsace already has a staggering 15 different soil types and now it has a longer growing season. Limestone and clay ensure that Pinot Noir will develop the right acidity and tannins. Good Pinot Noir never happens by mistake! I recently enjoyed a wine dinner with a number of different bottles of Pinot Noir from the Alsace. They had all the characteristics I expect from Pinot Noir—notes of strawberry or raspberry, smoke, leather, sometimes spice, fresh acidity. Some were fresh and vibrant, others more complex and earthy.  But the wine I enjoyed the most? Allimant Laugner Crémant d’Alsace Rosé. It's bright with strawberry and lemon, and deliciously fizzy and can be found for under $20. I love sparking wines and Brut ...

Chef Rachelle Boucher shows off our cherry jam If you’ve been to the store or maybe the farmers market recently you might have seen cherries. The sweetness of bing cherries is both intense and fleeting. Cherries don’t last long after being picked, unlike apples or oranges. That's why I'm glad to be a part of the Canbassador program. The past few years I’ve received a crate of fresh sweet cherries from Northwest Cherry Growers . Every year I experiment preserving something different. I’ve prepared cherry barbecue sauce , canned cherries for pie, put up bourbon cherries, made cherry  vanilla  shrub and even dried and frozen cherries. This year I decided to make cherry jam. It turned out to be a very special cooking experience for me because I wasn’t in my kitchen, but over at the Miele showroom in San Francisco, with my pal Chef Rachelle Boucher. She kindly invited me over to do a little cooking. To be honest, working with Miele appliances will spoil you. Here’s how it went an...